10 free and totally legal programs every multimedia journalist should have
Image credit: BinaryApe on Flickr
The multimedia journalist’s toolbox is ever growing – and getting ever cheaper.
While some of the top flight bits of kit: Adobe After Effects, Final Cut Studio and the like are still priced at hundreds of dollars, there are a growing number of cheaper or even free alternatives.
As much as I am big on net neutrality, I personally don’t agree with pirating software – it is very costly to develop and as a professional journalist, I think you should always work professionally. So that’s why free programs are awesome – here’s a list of 10 you can download right away. All of these I use personally – and very regularly: they’re good.
10 free and totally legal programs for multimedia journalists
.01 MPEG Streamclip 
What it does: Put simply, MPEG Streamclip is a video transcoder and compressor. It takes a video file and converts it into a smaller, bigger, different video file to suit your needs. I use it to compress the HD footage from my DSLR camera into a smaller high quality file so Final Cut Pro can handle it for editing.
Why you should have it: If you’re involved with the shooting or editing of video, MPEG Streamclip is a big problem solver. If you’ve got a film shot in .mov files, but one .avi file from another source, MPEG Streamclip will convert it. It’s also vital for making sure all your video uses the same codecs. You can also use it to resize footage.
How to get it: MPEG Streamclip is produced and published for free by Squared5. To download it for Mac or Windows, click here.
.02 GIMP 
What it does: The comedy name stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program: it’s basically a powerful alternative to Adobe Photoshop, released under the GNU philosophy of free software ownership. It does practically everything Photoshop does.
Why you should have it: While, if I were a professional photojournalist, I would still get something all powerful, like Photoshop with Lightroom, GIMP is perfect for editing photos for the web, or for creating graphics. I use it to resize, manipulate and layer photographs for this blog, videos and the web; I also use it to design logos and layers for my Motion Graphics work.
How to get it: I don’t recommend Googling GIMP (who knows what you’ll find!); Instead click here to download GIMP 2.6, the latest release.
.03 Audacity 
What it does: Audacity edits audio in lots of ways and is particularly effective for editing speech. It’s used in plenty of radio newsrooms around the world as an alternative to Adobe Audition. It allows for multilayered editing and lets you add plenty of professional filters to your audio.
Why you should have it: It’s useful as a simple converter (to turn a big .WAV file into a nice .mp3) but you’ll get more value from it if you’re editing podcasts or audio slideshows or using audio regularly in your work. It’s a bit tricky to get used to though, so give it time.
How to get it: It’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux and is also released – for free – under the GNU licence. Click here to get a copy.
.04 FrameCounter
What it does: How many frames in a second? Well 24 usually (which is actually 23.98); or maybe it’s 30 (which is actually 29.97); unless of course you’re shooting at 60 frames per second. So how many frames in 15 seconds? Ummm… FrameCounter is a neat program from the Apple App Store which does the unpleasant maths for you.
Why you should have it: I’m crap at maths. That’s unfortunate when you shoot and edit video because there’s a fair bit of adding and subtraction to be done adding up frames. The Frame Counter’s a useful go-to tool for getting your sums right.
How to get it: Unfortunately this is only (as far as I know) available through Apple’s new App Store for computers.
.05 AudioHijackPro
What it does: Audio Hijack Pro solves that tricky problem of recording audio straight from your computer’s soundcard. For example, trying to record an interview on Skype usually requires feeding a cable from your headphone socket to a separate recorder. Audio Hijack Pro records whatever noise your computer makes and saves it as a file for editing. It does of course mean you could record licenced material (like music) straight from your computer, a flaky legal area.
Why you should have it: It’s useful for recording interviews or the audio from videos/live-streams.
How to get it: Audio Hijack Pro is produced and published by the hilariously named Rogue Amoeba. Click here to download a copy. The free version gives you 10 minutes of HQ recording, after which the sound quality starts to downgrade.
.06 Firebug 
What it does: Firebug is a browser plugin for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and others. Installing it lets you view and edit the HTML and CSS of any web page and get a live preview of how that edit might look. Fancy seeing how your favourite news website would look like in Comic Sans? Firebug shows you.
Why you should have it: Japes aside, Firebug is a fantastic tool for web designing. Say you’re creating a new online magazine: you’ve installed a WordPress theme and want to mess around with the look. You can use Firebug to test out different colours/fonts etc without affecting the stylesheet itself. You can also see how the code of a web page has been laid out.
How to get it: You’ll need a compatible browser, like Firefox or Chrome, but with that installed, just look for the relevant plugin directory and go from there!
.07 Wisestamp 
What it does: Like Firebug, Wisestamp is a popular, free, plugin for advanced browsers. It creates a customisable email signature which you can attach at the bottom of your emails.
Why you should have it: Branding is increasingly important for many Next Generation Journalists, but how do you make your ‘brand’ standout among a sea of emails? Wisestamp lets you customise the colour, fonts and style of your signature and include a logo image. You can easily create social media buttons which link directly to your Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn and WordPress feeds.
How to get it: You’ll need a compatible browser, like Firefox or Chrome, but with that installed, just look for the relevant plugin directory and go from there!
.08 Instapaper
What it does: Instapaper is an online storage for those websites you just don’t have time to read. A button in your browser lets you save the page in one-click and read them later.
Why you should have it: As a journalist working primarily online I surf through dozens and dozens of websites a day. Serendipity occasionally brings me to something unexpected and interesting, but not something I have time to read straight away. One click and I can save it til later. Instapaper lets you archive webpages in folders too, so you can store links relevant to specific stories you’re covering. I usually save an hour or so on a Sunday morning to have a look at my saved websites.
How to get it: Instapaper is accessible as a plugin to most browsers. Alternatively you can save a javascript link as a tab in your browser. Head to the Instapaper website for more.
.09 JDarkRoom 
What it does: This is one of my favourite discoveries from the past year. It works to make your high powered computer, with all its buttons, dashboards, start menus look like one of those computers from the 1980s – you know, with the black screen and green text. Whatever you write is saved as a non-formatted text file.
Why you should have it: When I’m writing, I need to concentrate. That’s hard when you’re writing into a blog post, where the email tab is just a click away; or inside a word processor with countless distractions, like font size and colours. If you need to concentrate on the words alone, JDarkRoom clears everything else from your screen. The chunky green text is actually a very pleasant writing experience too. If you’re a writer your productivity will go up I promise!
How to get it: There’s a slightly better version called WriteRoom, which is available on a free trial and $24.99 afterwards; JDarkRoom however is completely free. It’s produced by the CodeAlchemists and you can click here to download.
.10 Quicktime
What it does: Why have I added Quicktime to this list? We all have it anyway right and it just plays .mov videos right? Wrong. Turns out Quicktime (on a Mac at least) is a bit more interesting than that. Did you know it can also record audio, video and even screencasts?
Why you should have it: You can use it to record footage from your webcam and Skype interviews. If you want to demo something on your computer, a screencast video is great.
How to get it: If you’ve got a Mac you should already have it. Again, a quick scout around the internet suggests this isn’t available for Windows users with quicktime. Sorry guys!
Of course, there are plenty of others too – including screen capture software, graphics software and writing programs. What ones have I missed off the list? Let me know in the comments!
10 great WordPress themes for your online magazine
Earlier this week, I suggested Flavors.me has the edge over WordPress, when it comes to creating a visually unique portfolio website for journalists.
But, when it comes to doing something more complex – such as creating a new online magazine, then WordPress still wins hands down (in fact, don’t even try using Flavors, it wasn’t designed for it!).
If you are starting an online magazine, or a complex blog, you’ll need a theme with the flexibility to create new articles and arrange them, create featured posts and media galleries. Luckily, hundreds of WordPress theme designers have come to the rescue with some awesome themes – many of which, won’t cost you a thing!
After a several weeks lost in theme galleries, I have picked out 10 really exceptional themes. I won’t describe each one – you can see for yourself whether it suits your purposes. Remember, don’t just pick themes based on their colours or fonts – those can be changed by editing the theme’s CSS file.
Free wordpress themes
(A NOTE about free themes: these themes come from trusted producers (such as WPShower), or via a trusted curator, such as Smashing Magazine. However there are dangers with using any old free theme you can find, as highlighted in this article. Thanks to @mike_rawlins for the tip)
Suburbia by WPShower | Demo
Magazeen by WeFunction | Demo
Sight by WPShower | Demo
Imbalance by WPShower | Demo
Premium wordpress themes
The Style by Elegant Themes $39 per year | Demo
Magazine Theme by Organic Themes $69 | Demo
Le News by Mrmema $35 | Demo
FolioStudio by BeanTheme $42 | Demo
Blogazette by Readactor $30 | Demo
Bulldog by SweetThemes $33| Demo
Why pay for a theme? Some of the benefits of a premium theme are better support, often better coding, and more flexibility. I have used both free and premium themes in the past; the free ones can have bugs and be a lot harder to understand for a novice web designer.
Any more to add? Stick ’em in the comments!
Talking the future of news
This week we held the first Future Of News Meetup in London.
A small but interesting mix of people turned up: journalism students, academics, publishers, photojournalists, news producers and seasoned hacks: a small fraction of the 140 people who have joined the group so far.
Although it was a casual first meeting, conversation soon turned to the crisis in journalism and the digital revolution, with paywalls and citizen journalism being thrashed out by the bar.
I set the group up in November, with the idea of bringing together journalists, academics, students and entrepreneurs to a free, regular forum to talk about new ideas which will define the future of news.
You can read more about it here, and if you’d like to join and come to more formal meetings in 2010 sign up here.
Photographs: Megumi Waters
Your chance to get involved in the future of news
There’s lots and lots of talk about the future of journalism at the moment.
You can read it on blogs like this one, this one and this one.
You can occasionally read something new in one of the papers, like this one.
You can even pay some money and go to conferences.
And while they are all fantastic hotbeds for debate, they’re not really regular enough to be good forums for that most crucial currency of all: new ideas.
That’s why I’ve set up a new meet-up group to get things moving.
It’s called the UK Future of News Group. If you are in the UK, or even better, in London then please think about joining and coming along to an informal meet up. It’s free, and you don’t even need to be a journalist- just interested about the future of journalism.
It’s perfect for bloggers, J-students, young journalists, J-entrepreneurs, hyper-locallers, lecturers not to mention seasoned old hacks. You could be working online, in print, on radio or with a camera.
The first meet-ups going to be in a bar near Waterloo, on the 7th December.
(hopefully avoiding any early Christmas parties)
What it isn’t, is an arena to repeatedly lament the death of print, or the end of quality journalism, or to go around saying “paywalls must be the answer, journalists have got to eat!”
What it is, is a place where people can think positively, about tangible new ideas to determine the future of journalism. I hope someone will pitch a few ideas which we can all thrash out and stew over.
And maybe one of them will come up with the next big thing.
But most of all, I want it to be a forum where we can all have a say on the future of our craft, without having to pay hundreds in conference fees.
Interested? Sign up now!
Money, money, money
I spent a large proportion of today standing in the cold outside a fish packaging factory in Grimsby.
Yes, it’s only the highlife journalism for me! Why? Well because 500 people could be made redundant there – after the company’s Icelandic owner struggles with the credit crunch. It could be a massive blow to the region’s economy, and people.
Oh there it goes again.
The. Credit. Crunch.
If you’ve read this week’s Weekly Radio magazine, my former tutor at City University’s Broadcast Journalism course in London, Jan Whyatt has made some interesting points about coverage of the financial crisis so far.
“In my experience, a lot of journalists are not all that numerate. They don’t really feel feel comfortable with financial news. The people that recognise and accredit journalism training should strongly consider making it an absolute requirement to pass an exam demonstrating numeracy.”
I totally agree. I think the media has largely failed to analyse the crisis, other than with graphics of downward graphs and (the BBC’s favourite) a statistic slowly getting larger in the centre of the screen. Peston’s always good quality of course, but unfortunately he’s not available for every market. Radio meanwhile has struggled with its brevity.
I don’t just think our journalists should be armed with better knowledge; I wrote ages ago I think we ALL should!
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Adam Westbrook // ideas on digital storytelling and publishing 
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